‘3 Peat Baby’: NASCAR’s Tyler Reddick celebrates historic start to season with team co-owner Michael Jordan

Tyler Reddick isn’t exactly the Michael Jordan of NASCAR.

Not yet anyway.

Still, Reddick seems to be at the start of something special as the driver of a team co-owned by the NBA legend who led the Chicago Bulls to two NBA championship three-peats in the 1990s (1991-93 and 1996-98).

Less than a month into the season, Reddick has established his own three-peat of sorts, the likes of which has never been seen before in NASCAR.

After winning the Daytona 500 on Feb. 16 and at Echo Park Speedway in Atlanta last week, Reddick held off Shane van Gisbergen over the final 20 laps at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, on Sunday to become the first Cup Series driver to win the first three races of the season.

“It’s incredible. NASCAR’s always been super competitive but in this day and age where the field is so close, for us to be able to pull this off is true testament of teamwork, hard work in the offseason by everyone on this team, everyone at 23XI,” Reddick told KXAN-TV in Austin after the race.

“It’s super special to be on this kind of a run. We’re just gonna try to keep it going as long as we can. We’re kind of just in the right headspace throughout the week, and it’s been really sweet to just grab these wins like we have.”

Jordan, who co-owns 23XI Racing with Denny Hamlin, was with Reddick’s pit crew at the end of the race. As Reddick climbed out of the car, Jordan gave him a high five and exclaimed, “Three, baby, three!”

Reddick posted video of that exchange with Jordan on X and wrote, “3 PEAT BABY.”

Also on X, Reddick posted a photo of Jordan holding up three fingers after the Bulls’ first three-peat in 1993 next to a photo of himself making the same gesture while holding his trophy from Sunday’s race.

“Tyler came in with most pressure,” Jordan told Fox Sports. “He had a chance to win three in a row. That’s the hardest one to win, you know. And he kept to his strategy. … Tyler did a good job. He beat good competition.”

In December, an anti-trust lawsuit against NASCAR filed by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports was settled nine days into the trial, with NASCAR agreeing to grant all of its teams the permanent charters they had been seeking.

Started in 2020, 23XI Racing has three full-time cars — driven by Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst — as well as a part-time car driven by Corey Heim. Entering next week’s race in Phoenix, Reddick leads the NASCAR Cup standings by 70 points, followed by Wallace in second place.

Jordan credited Hamlin, who still drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, as the “mastermind” who put together a team that is seeing such great success early this season.

“I just put up the money,” Jordan said.